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Pat’s zucchini loaf cake

I was watching “Gardening Australia” on Friday night, as you do in the country 😦 , and a segment came on which really warmed the cockles of my heart.

It was about a lady named Pat and her vegetable garden. Pat is in her 90s and still tends to the garden with the help of her son, granddaughter and great granddaughter.

The garden was started by Pat’s late husband’s (Russell) parents. Pat moved into Russell’s family home after they married. Russell was the youngest of eight boys and six girls, and was born and raised in the house. After Russell’s parents died, Russell and Pat continued the garden together. Russell died a few years ago.

The vegetable garden has sustained five generations of the one family. Wow!

In the segment, Pat made a cake with zucchinis from her garden. I decided I would make Pat’s cake but … I never grow zucchinis because I know I will be inundated with them in summer when I am also overwhelmed by tomatoes, corn, beans and cucumbers. As a result, I couldn’t just go out to the vegie patch and pick a zucchini for the cake. I had to bloody buy one!!. Oh well, I figured there was sure to be an honour box on the side of the road with zucchinis for 50c each or even, if I was lucky, 3 for $1.00.

What is the world coming to? There was not a zucchini to be seen on the way to town! And when I got to town, the zucchinis were $2.00 each! That is unheard of this time of the year around here. I had my heart set on Pat’s zucchini cake so I bought two. Alas, one would have been sufficient.

I added a cup of walnuts which was not in the recipe. I could not control myself. Walnuts always make a loaf taste better.

The photo above was taken just after the cake came out of the oven. I had to have a slice so I could report on how it tasted – very nice (especially with the walnuts). 🙂

Add grated zucchini, brown sugar, vegetable oil and lightly beaten eggs (and one cup of walnuts if you, like me, are a walnut fiend) to the flour.

Mix roughly and spoon into baking tins.

Bake for 25-35 minutes (depending on size of your tins). I used a 23cm x 13 cm Wiltshire enamel Loaf Pan which took all the batter but, because it was bigger, it took longer to cook, about 50 – 55 minutes. Pat used two small tins so that would be why her cakes took less time to bake.

Hi Cristina. Thanks for the recipe, I will try it but I need to clarify a few bits. I think there must be a few typos. No amount of flour is mentioned and is the amount of butter supposed to be one third a cup?

I hope u try it first. Please let me know if it works out .
For this, I use 3 cups of unbleached King Arthur’s whole wheat flour , as for the oil, I used EVOO but then, I substituted EVOO for extra virgin LIGHT olive oil ( I am not sure it is available in your part of the world but where I shop, it is ore expensive than EVOO because of supply and demand, not selling as well) . The yogurt I used is non fat Greek yogurt with fruits on the bottom. It comes ini 5.3 ounce but when I remove the fruit, it is probably less. I have substituted that with regular yogurt but that does not work as wel. I found to too wet) ) With greek yogurt, texture is heavier, and occasionally, I add equal amount of Mott’s applesauce in small individual cup ( almost the same amount if not less than 5.3 ounces) when available.
HOPE U LIKe it. pass me a note when u try